Lunar landing
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A Moon landing is the arrival of a
spacecraft A spacecraft is a vehicle or machine designed to fly in outer space. A type of artificial satellite, spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, Earth observation, meteorology, navigation, space colonization, p ...
on the surface of the
Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...
. This includes both crewed and robotic missions. The first human-made object to touch the Moon was the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
's
Luna 2 ''Luna 2'' ( rus, Луна 2}), originally named the Second Soviet Cosmic Rocket and nicknamed Lunik 2 in contemporaneous media, was the sixth of the Soviet Union's Luna programme spacecraft launched to the Moon, E-1 No.7. It was the first spac ...
, on 13 September 1959. The United States'
Apollo 11 Apollo 11 (July 16–24, 1969) was the American spaceflight that first landed humans on the Moon. Commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin landed the Apollo Lunar Module ''Eagle'' on July 20, 1969, at 20:17 UTC, an ...
was the first crewed mission to land on the Moon, on 20 July 1969. There were six crewed U.S. landings between 1969 and 1972, and numerous uncrewed landings, with no soft landings happening between 22 August 1976 and 14 December 2013. The United States is the only country to have successfully conducted crewed missions to the Moon, with the last departing the lunar surface in December 1972. All soft landings took place on the
near side of the Moon The near side of the Moon is the lunar hemisphere that always faces towards Earth, opposite to the far side. Only one side of the Moon is visible from Earth because the Moon rotates on its axis at the same rate that the Moon orbits the Earth—a ...
until 3 January 2019, when the Chinese
Chang'e 4 Chang'e 4 (; ) is a robotic spacecraft mission, part of the second phase of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program. China achieved humanity's first soft landing on the far side of the Moon, on 3 January 2019. A communication relay satellite, ...
spacecraft made the first landing on the
far side of the Moon The far side of the Moon is the lunar hemisphere that always faces away from Earth, opposite to the Near side of the Moon, near side, because of synchronous rotation in the Moon's orbit. Compared to the near side, the far side's terrain is ru ...
.


Uncrewed landings

After the unsuccessful attempt by
Luna 1 ''Luna 1'', also known as ''Mechta'' (russian: Мечта , '' lit.'': ''Dream''), ''E-1 No.4'' and ''First Lunar Rover'', was the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of Earth's Moon, and the first spacecraft to be placed in heliocentric or ...
to land on the Moon in 1959, the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
performed the first hard Moon landing – "hard" meaning the spacecraft intentionally crashes into the Moon – later that same year with the
Luna 2 ''Luna 2'' ( rus, Луна 2}), originally named the Second Soviet Cosmic Rocket and nicknamed Lunik 2 in contemporaneous media, was the sixth of the Soviet Union's Luna programme spacecraft launched to the Moon, E-1 No.7. It was the first spac ...
spacecraft, a feat the U.S. duplicated in 1962 with
Ranger 4 Ranger 4 was a spacecraft of the Ranger program, launched in 1962. It was designed to transmit pictures of the lunar surface to Earth stations during a period of 10 minutes of flight prior to crashing upon the Moon, to rough-land a seismometer ca ...
. Since then, twelve Soviet and U.S. spacecraft have used braking rockets (
retrorocket A retrorocket (short for ''retrograde rocket'') is a rocket engine providing thrust opposing the motion of a vehicle, thereby causing it to decelerate. They have mostly been used in spacecraft, with more limited use in short-runway aircraft land ...
s) to make soft landings and perform scientific operations on the lunar surface, between 1966 and 1976. In 1966, the USSR accomplished the first soft landings and took the first pictures from the lunar surface during the
Luna 9 Luna 9 (Луна-9), internal designation Ye-6 No.13, was an uncrewed space mission of the Soviet Union's Luna programme. On 3 February 1966, the Luna 9 spacecraft became the first spacecraft to achieve a survivable landing on a celestial bod ...
and
Luna 13 Luna 13 (E-6M series) was an unmanned space mission of the Luna program. Overview The Luna 13 spacecraft was launched toward the Moon from an Earth-orbiting platform and accomplished a soft landing on 24 December 1966, in the region of Oceanus P ...
missions. The U.S. followed with five uncrewed
Surveyor Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. A land surveying professional is ca ...
soft landings. The Soviet Union achieved the first uncrewed lunar soil
sample return A sample-return mission is a spacecraft mission to collect and return samples from an extraterrestrial location to Earth for analysis. Sample-return missions may bring back merely atoms and molecules or a deposit of complex compounds such as lo ...
with the
Luna 16 ''Luna 16'' was an uncrewed space mission, part of the Soviet Luna program. It was the first robotic probe to land on the Moon and return a sample of lunar soil to Earth. The 101 grams (3.56 ounces) sample was returned from Mare Fecunditatis. ...
probe on 24 September 1970. This was followed by
Luna 20 ''Luna 20'' was the second of three successful Soviet lunar sample return missions. It was flown as part of the Luna program as a robotic competitor to the six successful Apollo lunar sample return missions. Overview ''Luna 20'' was placed i ...
and
Luna 24 ''Luna 24'' was a robotic probe of the Soviet Union's Luna programme. The last of the Luna series of spacecraft, the mission of the ''Luna 24'' probe was the third Soviet mission to return lunar soil samples from the Moon (the first two sampl ...
in 1972 and 1976, respectively. Following the failure at launch in 1969 of the first
Lunokhod Lunokhod ( rus, Луноход, p=lʊnɐˈxot, "Moonwalker") was a series of Soviet robotic lunar rovers designed to land on the Moon between 1969 and 1977. Lunokhod 1 was the first roving remote-controlled robot to land on an extraterrestrial ...
,
Luna E-8 No.201 Luna E-8 No.201, also known as Luna Ye-8 No.201, and sometimes identified by NASA as Luna 1969A, was a Soviet spacecraft which was lost in a launch failure in 1969. It was a Luna E-8 spacecraft, the first of three to be launched, It was intended ...
, the
Luna 17 ''LOK Luna 17'' (Ye-8 series) was an unmanned space mission of the Luna program, also called ''Lunik 17''. It deployed the first robotic rover onto the surface of the Moon. Launch ''Luna 17'' was launched from an Earth parking orbit towards ...
and
Luna 21 ''Luna 21'' (Ye-8 series) was an unmanned space mission, and its spacecraft, of the Luna program, also called ''Lunik 21'', in 1973. The spacecraft landed on the Moon and deployed the second Soviet lunar rover, ''Lunokhod 2''. The primary obje ...
were successful uncrewed
lunar rover A lunar rover or Moon rover is a space exploration vehicle designed to move across the surface of the Moon. The Apollo Program's Lunar Roving Vehicle was driven on the Moon by members of three American crews, Apollo 15, 16, and 17. Other rov ...
missions in 1970 and 1973. Many missions were failures at launch. In addition, several uncrewed landing missions achieved the Lunar surface but were unsuccessful, including:
Luna 15 Luna 15 was a robotic space mission of the Soviet Luna programme, that crashed into the Moon on 21 July 1969. On 21 July 1969, while Apollo 11 astronauts finished the first human moonwalk, Luna 15, a robotic Soviet spacecraft in lunar orbit at th ...
,
Luna 18 ''Luna 18'', part of the Ye-8-5 series, was an unmanned space mission of the Luna program. Overview ''Luna 18'' was placed in an Earth parking orbit after it was launched and was then sent towards the Moon. On 7 September 1971, it entered lunar ...
, and
Luna 23 ''Luna 23'' was an unmanned space mission of the Luna program developed by the Soviet Union. Overview ''Luna 23'' was a Soviet Moon lander mission which was intended to return a lunar sample to Earth. Launched to the Moon by a Proton-K/ D, the ...
all crashed on landing; and the U.S.
Surveyor 4 Surveyor 4 was the fourth lunar lander in the American uncrewed Surveyor program sent to explore the surface of the Moon. This spacecraft crashed after an otherwise flawless mission; telemetry contact was lost 2.5 minutes before touchdown. The ...
lost all radio contact only moments before its landing. More recently, other nations have crashed spacecraft on the surface of the Moon at speeds of around , often at precise, planned locations. These have generally been end-of-life lunar orbiters that, because of system degradations, could no longer overcome perturbations from lunar mass concentrations ("mascons") to maintain their orbit. Japan's lunar orbiter
Hiten Hiten may refer to: * Hiten (name), Indian given name * Hiten (spacecraft), Japanese lunar probe *Tennin , which may include , , and the specifically female version, the , are a divine kind of spiritual beings found in Japanese Buddhism, the ...
impacted the Moon's surface on 10 April 1993. The
European Space Agency , owners = , headquarters = Paris, Île-de-France, France , coordinates = , spaceport = Guiana Space Centre , seal = File:ESA emblem seal.png , seal_size = 130px , image = Views in the Main Control Room (1205 ...
performed a controlled crash impact with their orbiter SMART-1 on 3 September 2006.
Indian Space Research Organisation The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO; ) is the national space agency of India, headquartered in Bengaluru. It operates under the Department of Space (DOS) which is directly overseen by the Prime Minister of India, while the Chairman ...
(ISRO) performed a controlled crash impact with its
Moon Impact Probe The Moon Impact Probe (MIP) developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), India's national space agency, was a moon, lunar probe that was released by ISRO's Chandrayaan-1 Exploration of the Moon, ...
(MIP) on 14 November 2008. The MIP was an ejected probe from the Indian
Chandrayaan-1 Chandrayaan-1 (, ) was the first Indian lunar probe under the Chandrayaan program. It was launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation in October 2008, and operated until August 2009. The mission included a lunar orbiter and an impacto ...
lunar orbiter and performed
remote sensing Remote sensing is the acquisition of information about an object or phenomenon without making physical contact with the object, in contrast to in situ or on-site observation. The term is applied especially to acquiring information about Earth ...
experiments during its descent to the lunar surface. The Chinese lunar orbiter
Chang'e 1 Chang'e 1 (; ) was an unmanned Chinese lunar-orbiting spacecraft, part of the first phase of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program. The spacecraft was named after the Chinese Moon goddess, Chang'e. Chang'e 1 was launched on 24 October 2007 at 10 ...
executed a controlled crash onto the surface of the Moon on 1 March 2009. The rover mission
Chang'e 3 Chang'e 3 (; ) is a robotic lunar exploration mission operated by the China National Space Administration (CNSA), incorporating a robotic lander and China's first lunar rover. It was launched in December 2013 as part of the second phase of ...
soft-landed on 14 December 2013, as did its successor,
Chang'e 4 Chang'e 4 (; ) is a robotic spacecraft mission, part of the second phase of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program. China achieved humanity's first soft landing on the far side of the Moon, on 3 January 2019. A communication relay satellite, ...
, on 3 January 2019. All crewed and uncrewed soft landings had taken place on the
near side of the Moon The near side of the Moon is the lunar hemisphere that always faces towards Earth, opposite to the far side. Only one side of the Moon is visible from Earth because the Moon rotates on its axis at the same rate that the Moon orbits the Earth—a ...
, until 3 January 2019 when the Chinese
Chang'e 4 Chang'e 4 (; ) is a robotic spacecraft mission, part of the second phase of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program. China achieved humanity's first soft landing on the far side of the Moon, on 3 January 2019. A communication relay satellite, ...
spacecraft made the first landing on the
far side of the Moon The far side of the Moon is the lunar hemisphere that always faces away from Earth, opposite to the Near side of the Moon, near side, because of synchronous rotation in the Moon's orbit. Compared to the near side, the far side's terrain is ru ...
. On 22 February 2019, Israeli private space agency
SpaceIL SpaceIL is an Israeli organization, established in 2011, that competed in the Google Lunar X Prize (GLXP) contest to land a spacecraft on the Moon. SpaceIL successfully launched its ''Beresheet'' lander on 22 February 2019 at 01:45 UTC; it ente ...
launched spacecraft
Beresheet ''Beresheet'' ( he, בְּרֵאשִׁית, ''Bərēšīṯ'', "In the beginning"; Book of Genesis) was a demonstrator of a small robotic lunar lander and lunar probe operated by SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries. Its aims included insp ...
on board a Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral, Florida with the intention of achieving a soft landing. SpaceIL lost contact with the spacecraft and it crashed into the surface on 11 April 2019.
Indian Space Research Organization The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO; ) is the national space agency of India, headquartered in Bengaluru. It operates under the Department of Space (DOS) which is directly overseen by the Prime Minister of India, while the Chairman ...
launched
Chandrayaan-2 Chandrayaan-2 (, ; ) is the second lunar exploration mission developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), after Chandrayaan-1. It consists of a lunar orbiter, and also included the ''Vikram'' lander, and the ''Pragyan'' lunar ...
on 22 July 2019 with landing scheduled on 6 September 2019. However, at an altitude of 2.1 km from the Moon a few minutes before soft landing, the lander lost contact with the control room.


Crewed landings

A total of twelve men have landed on the Moon. This was accomplished with two US pilot-astronauts flying a
Lunar Module The Apollo Lunar Module (LM ), originally designated the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM), was the lunar lander spacecraft that was flown between lunar orbit and the Moon's surface during the United States' Apollo program. It was the first crewed ...
on each of six
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
missions across a 41-month period starting 20 July 1969, with
Neil Armstrong Neil Alden Armstrong (August 5, 1930 – August 25, 2012) was an American astronaut and aeronautical engineer who became the first person to walk on the Moon in 1969. He was also a naval aviator, test pilot, and university professor. ...
and
Buzz Aldrin Buzz Aldrin (; born Edwin Eugene Aldrin Jr.; January 20, 1930) is an American former astronaut, engineer and fighter pilot. He made three spacewalks as pilot of the 1966 Gemini 12 mission. As the Lunar Module ''Eagle'' pilot on the 1969 A ...
on
Apollo 11 Apollo 11 (July 16–24, 1969) was the American spaceflight that first landed humans on the Moon. Commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin landed the Apollo Lunar Module ''Eagle'' on July 20, 1969, at 20:17 UTC, an ...
, and ending on 14 December 1972 with
Gene Cernan Eugene Andrew Cernan (; March 14, 1934 – January 16, 2017) was an American astronaut, naval aviator, electrical engineer, aeronautical engineer, and fighter pilot. During the Apollo 17 mission, Cernan became the eleventh human being to ...
and
Jack Schmitt Harrison Hagan Schmitt (born July 3, 1935) is an American geologist, retired NASA astronaut, university professor, former U.S. senator from New Mexico, and the most recent living person—and only person without a background in military aviation ...
on
Apollo 17 Apollo 17 (December 7–19, 1972) was the final mission of NASA's Apollo program, the most recent time humans have set foot on the Moon or traveled beyond low Earth orbit. Commander Gene Cernan and Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt walked on ...
. Cernan was the last man to step off the lunar surface. All Apollo lunar missions had a third crew member who remained on board the command module. The last three missions included a drivable lunar rover, the
Lunar Roving Vehicle The Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) is a battery-powered four-wheeled rover used on the Moon in the last three missions of the American Apollo program ( 15, 16, and 17) during 1971 and 1972. It is popularly called the Moon buggy, a play on the t ...
, for increased mobility.


Scientific background

To get to the Moon, a spacecraft must first leave Earth's
gravity well The Hill sphere of an astronomical body is the region in which it dominates the attraction of satellites. To be retained by a planet, a moon must have an orbit that lies within the planet's Hill sphere. That moon would, in turn, have a Hill sp ...
; currently, the only practical means is a
rocket A rocket (from it, rocchetto, , bobbin/spool) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using the surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entirely fr ...
. Unlike airborne vehicles such as
balloons A balloon is a flexible bag that can be inflated with a gas, such as helium, hydrogen, nitrous oxide, oxygen Oxygen is the chemical element with the symbol O and atomic number 8. It is a member of the chalcogen group in the per ...
and jets, a rocket can continue
accelerating In mechanics, acceleration is the rate of change of the velocity of an object with respect to time. Accelerations are vector quantities (in that they have magnitude and direction). The orientation of an object's acceleration is given by the ...
in the
vacuum A vacuum is a space devoid of matter. The word is derived from the Latin adjective ''vacuus'' for "vacant" or "void". An approximation to such vacuum is a region with a gaseous pressure much less than atmospheric pressure. Physicists often dis ...
outside the
atmosphere An atmosphere () is a layer of gas or layers of gases that envelop a planet, and is held in place by the gravity of the planetary body. A planet retains an atmosphere when the gravity is great and the temperature of the atmosphere is low. A s ...
. Upon approach of the target moon, a spacecraft will be drawn ever closer to its surface at increasing speeds due to gravity. In order to land intact it must decelerate to less than about and be ruggedized to withstand a "hard landing" impact, or it must decelerate to negligible speed at contact for a "soft landing" (the only option for humans). The first three attempts by the U.S. to perform a successful hard Moon landing with a ruggedized
seismometer A seismometer is an instrument that responds to ground noises and shaking such as caused by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and explosions. They are usually combined with a timing device and a recording device to form a seismograph. The outpu ...
package in 1962 all failed. The Soviets first achieved the milestone of a hard lunar landing with a ruggedized camera in 1966, followed only months later by the first uncrewed soft lunar landing by the U.S. The speed of a crash landing on its surface is typically between 70 and 100% of the
escape velocity In celestial mechanics, escape velocity or escape speed is the minimum speed needed for a free, non- propelled object to escape from the gravitational influence of a primary body, thus reaching an infinite distance from it. It is typically ...
of the target moon, and thus this is the total velocity which must be shed from the target moon's gravitational attraction for a soft landing to occur. For Earth's Moon, the escape velocity is . The change in velocity (referred to as a
delta-v Delta-''v'' (more known as "change in velocity"), symbolized as ∆''v'' and pronounced ''delta-vee'', as used in spacecraft flight dynamics, is a measure of the impulse per unit of spacecraft mass that is needed to perform a maneuver such as ...
) is usually provided by a landing rocket, which must be carried into space by the original
launch vehicle A launch vehicle or carrier rocket is a rocket designed to carry a payload (spacecraft or satellites) from the Earth's surface to outer space. Most launch vehicles operate from a launch pad, launch pads, supported by a missile launch contro ...
as part of the overall spacecraft. An exception is the soft moon landing on Titan carried out by the ''Huygens'' probe in 2005. As the moon with the thickest atmosphere, landings on Titan may be accomplished by using
atmospheric entry Atmospheric entry is the movement of an object from outer space into and through the gases of an atmosphere of a planet, dwarf planet, or natural satellite. There are two main types of atmospheric entry: ''uncontrolled entry'', such as the ent ...
techniques that are generally lighter in weight than a rocket with equivalent capability. The Soviets succeeded in making the first crash landing on the Moon in 1959. Crash landings may occur because of malfunctions in a spacecraft, or they can be deliberately arranged for vehicles which do not have an onboard landing rocket. There have been many such Moon crashes, often with their flight path controlled to impact at precise locations on the lunar surface. For example, during the Apollo program the
S-IVB The S-IVB (pronounced "S-four-B") was the third stage on the Saturn V and second stage on the Saturn IB launch vehicles. Built by the Douglas Aircraft Company, it had one J-2 (rocket engine), J-2 rocket engine. For lunar missions it was fired twi ...
third stage of the
Saturn V Saturn V is a retired American super heavy-lift launch vehicle developed by NASA under the Apollo program for human exploration of the Moon. The rocket was human-rated, with multistage rocket, three stages, and powered with liquid-propellant r ...
rocket as well as the spent ascent stage of the
Lunar Module The Apollo Lunar Module (LM ), originally designated the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM), was the lunar lander spacecraft that was flown between lunar orbit and the Moon's surface during the United States' Apollo program. It was the first crewed ...
were deliberately crashed on the Moon several times to provide impacts registering as a
moonquake A quake is the result when the surface of a planet, moon or star begins to shake, usually as the consequence of a sudden release of energy transmitted as seismic waves, and potentially with great violence. The types of quakes include: Earthquak ...
on
seismometer A seismometer is an instrument that responds to ground noises and shaking such as caused by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and explosions. They are usually combined with a timing device and a recording device to form a seismograph. The outpu ...
s that had been left on the lunar surface. Such crashes were instrumental in mapping the
internal structure of the Moon Having a mean density of 3,346.4  kg/m3, the Moon is a differentiated body, being composed of a geochemically distinct crust, mantle, and planetary core. This structure is believed to have resulted from the fractional crystallization ...
. To return to Earth, the escape velocity of the Moon must be overcome for the spacecraft to escape the
gravity well The Hill sphere of an astronomical body is the region in which it dominates the attraction of satellites. To be retained by a planet, a moon must have an orbit that lies within the planet's Hill sphere. That moon would, in turn, have a Hill sp ...
of the Moon. Rockets must be used to leave the Moon and return to space. Upon reaching Earth, atmospheric entry techniques are used to absorb the
kinetic energy In physics, the kinetic energy of an object is the energy that it possesses due to its motion. It is defined as the work needed to accelerate a body of a given mass from rest to its stated velocity. Having gained this energy during its accele ...
of a returning spacecraft and reduce its speed for safe landing. These functions greatly complicate a moon landing mission and lead to many additional operational considerations. Any moon departure rocket must first be carried to the Moon's surface by a moon landing rocket, increasing the latter's required size. The Moon departure rocket, larger moon landing rocket and any Earth atmosphere entry equipment such as heat shields and
parachute A parachute is a device used to slow the motion of an object through an atmosphere by creating drag or, in a ram-air parachute, aerodynamic lift. A major application is to support people, for recreation or as a safety device for aviators, who ...
s must in turn be lifted by the original launch vehicle, greatly increasing its size by a significant and almost prohibitive degree.


Political background

The intense efforts devoted in the 1960s to achieving first an uncrewed and then ultimately a human Moon landing become easier to understand in the political context of its historical era.
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
had introduced many new and deadly innovations including
blitzkrieg Blitzkrieg ( , ; from 'lightning' + 'war') is a word used to describe a surprise attack using a rapid, overwhelming force concentration that may consist of armored and motorized or mechanized infantry formations, together with close air su ...
-style surprise attacks used in the
invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week aft ...
and
Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
, and in the
attack on Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, j ...
; the
V-2 rocket The V-2 (german: Vergeltungswaffe 2, lit=Retaliation Weapon 2), with the technical name ''Aggregat 4'' (A-4), was the world’s first long-range guided ballistic missile. The missile, powered by a liquid-propellant rocket engine, was developed ...
, a
ballistic missile A ballistic missile is a type of missile that uses projectile motion to deliver warheads on a target. These weapons are guided only during relatively brief periods—most of the flight is unpowered. Short-range ballistic missiles stay within the ...
which killed thousands in attacks on London and
Antwerp Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504,
; and the
atom bomb A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...
, which killed hundreds of thousands in the
atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki The United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945, respectively. The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the onl ...
. In the 1950s, tensions mounted between the two ideologically opposed superpowers of the United States and the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
that had emerged as victors in the conflict, particularly after the development by both countries of the
hydrogen bomb A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb (H bomb) is a second-generation nuclear weapon design. Its greater sophistication affords it vastly greater destructive power than first-generation nuclear bombs, a more compact size, a lowe ...
.
Willy Ley Willy or Willie is a masculine, male given name, often a diminutive form of William or Wilhelm, and occasionally a nickname. It may refer to: People Given name or nickname * Willie Aames (born 1960), American actor, television director, and scree ...
wrote in 1957 that a rocket to the Moon "could be built later this year if somebody can be found to sign some papers". On 4 October 1957, the Soviet Union launched ''
Sputnik 1 Sputnik 1 (; see § Etymology) was the first artificial Earth satellite. It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957 as part of the Soviet space program. It sent a radio signal back to Earth for t ...
'' as the first
artificial satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioisoto ...
to orbit the Earth and so initiated the
Space Race The Space Race was a 20th-century competition between two Cold War rivals, the United States and the Soviet Union, to achieve superior spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the ballistic missile-based nuclear arms race between the tw ...
. This unexpected event was a source of pride to the Soviets and shock to the U.S., who could now potentially be surprise attacked by nuclear-tipped Soviet rockets in under 30 minutes. Also, the steady beeping of the
radio beacon In navigation, a radio beacon or radiobeacon is a kind of beacon, a device that marks a fixed location and allows direction-finding equipment to find relative bearing. But instead of employing visible light, radio beacons transmit electromagnet ...
aboard ''Sputnik 1'' as it passed overhead every 96 minutes was widely viewed on both sides as effective propaganda to
Third World The term "Third World" arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Western European nations and their allies represented the " First ...
countries demonstrating the technological superiority of the Soviet
political system In political science, a political system means the type of political organization that can be recognized, observed or otherwise declared by a state. It defines the process for making official government decisions. It usually comprizes the govern ...
compared to that of the U.S. This perception was reinforced by a string of subsequent rapid-fire Soviet space achievements. In 1959, the R-7 rocket was used to launch the first escape from Earth's gravity into a
solar orbit A heliocentric orbit (also called circumsolar orbit) is an orbit around the barycenter of the Solar System, which is usually located within or very near the surface of the Sun. All planets, comets, and asteroids in the Solar System, and the Sun ...
, the first crash impact onto the surface of the Moon, and the first photography of the never-before-seen
far side of the Moon The far side of the Moon is the lunar hemisphere that always faces away from Earth, opposite to the Near side of the Moon, near side, because of synchronous rotation in the Moon's orbit. Compared to the near side, the far side's terrain is ru ...
. These were the
Luna 1 ''Luna 1'', also known as ''Mechta'' (russian: Мечта , '' lit.'': ''Dream''), ''E-1 No.4'' and ''First Lunar Rover'', was the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of Earth's Moon, and the first spacecraft to be placed in heliocentric or ...
,
Luna 2 ''Luna 2'' ( rus, Луна 2}), originally named the Second Soviet Cosmic Rocket and nicknamed Lunik 2 in contemporaneous media, was the sixth of the Soviet Union's Luna programme spacecraft launched to the Moon, E-1 No.7. It was the first spac ...
, and
Luna 3 Luna 3, or E-2A No.1 ( rus, Луна 3}) was a Soviet spacecraft launched in 1959 as part of the Luna programme. It was the first mission to photograph the far side of the Moon and the third Soviet space probe to be sent to the neighborhood of th ...
spacecraft. The U.S. response to these Soviet achievements was to greatly accelerate previously existing military space and missile projects and to create a civilian space agency,
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
. Military efforts were initiated to develop and produce mass quantities of intercontinental ballistic missiles (
ICBMs An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a ballistic missile with a range greater than , primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery (delivering one or more thermonuclear warheads). Conventional, chemical, and biological weapons ...
) that would bridge the so-called
missile gap In the United States, during the Cold War, the missile gap was the perceived superiority of the number and power of the USSR's missiles in comparison with those of the U.S. (a lack of military parity). The gap in the ballistic missile arsenals di ...
and enable a policy of
deterrence Deterrence may refer to: * Deterrence theory, a theory of war, especially regarding nuclear weapons * Deterrence (penology), a theory of justice * Deterrence (psychology) Deterrence in relation to criminal offending is the idea or theory that t ...
to
nuclear war Nuclear warfare, also known as atomic warfare, is a theoretical military conflict or prepared political strategy that deploys nuclear weaponry. Nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction; in contrast to conventional warfare, nuclear w ...
with the Soviets known as
mutual assured destruction Mutual assured destruction (MAD) is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy which posits that a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by an attacker on a nuclear-armed defender with second-strike capabilities would cause the ...
or MAD. These newly developed
missile In military terminology, a missile is a guided airborne ranged weapon capable of self-propelled flight usually by a jet engine or rocket motor. Missiles are thus also called guided missiles or guided rockets (when a previously unguided rocket i ...
s were made available to civilians of NASA for various projects (which would have the added benefit of demonstrating the payload, guidance accuracy and reliabilities of U.S. ICBMs to the Soviets). While NASA stressed peaceful and scientific uses for these rockets, their use in various
lunar exploration The physical exploration of the Moon began when ''Luna 2'', a space probe launched by the Soviet Union, made an impact on the surface of the Moon on September 14, 1959. Prior to that the only available means of exploration had been observation ...
efforts also had secondary goal of realistic, goal-oriented testing of the missiles themselves and development of associated infrastructure, just as the Soviets were doing with their R-7.


Early Soviet uncrewed lunar missions (1958–1965)

After the
fall of the Soviet Union The dissolution of the Soviet Union, also negatively connoted as rus, Разва́л Сове́тского Сою́за, r=Razvál Sovétskogo Soyúza, ''Ruining of the Soviet Union''. was the process of internal disintegration within the Sov ...
in 1991, historical records were released to allow the true accounting of Soviet lunar efforts. Unlike the U.S. tradition of assigning a particular mission name in advance of a launch, the Soviets assigned a public "
Luna Luna commonly refers to: * Earth's Moon, named "Luna" in Latin * Luna (goddess), the ancient Roman personification of the Moon Luna may also refer to: Places Philippines * Luna, Apayao * Luna, Isabela * Luna, La Union * Luna, San Jose Roma ...
" mission number only if a launch resulted in a spacecraft going beyond Earth orbit. The policy had the effect of hiding Soviet Moon mission failures from public view. If the attempt failed in Earth orbit before departing for the Moon, it was frequently (but not always) given a "
Sputnik Sputnik 1 (; see § Etymology) was the first artificial Earth satellite. It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957 as part of the Soviet space program. It sent a radio signal back to Earth for t ...
" or "
Cosmos The cosmos (, ) is another name for the Universe. Using the word ''cosmos'' implies viewing the universe as a complex and orderly system or entity. The cosmos, and understandings of the reasons for its existence and significance, are studied in ...
" Earth-orbit mission number to hide its purpose. Launch explosions were not acknowledged at all.


Early U.S. uncrewed lunar missions (1958–1965)

In contrast to Soviet lunar exploration triumphs in 1959, success eluded initial U.S. efforts to reach the Moon with the
Pioneer Pioneer commonly refers to a settler who migrates to previously uninhabited or sparsely inhabited land. In the United States pioneer commonly refers to an American pioneer, a person in American history who migrated west to join in settling and dev ...
and
Ranger program The Ranger program was a series of unmanned space missions by the United States in the 1960s whose objective was to obtain the first close-up images of the surface of the Moon. The Ranger spacecraft were designed to take images of the lunar sur ...
s. Fifteen consecutive U.S. uncrewed lunar missions over a six-year period from 1958 to 1964 all failed their primary photographic missions; however, Rangers 4 and 6 successfully repeated the Soviet lunar impacts as part of their secondary missions. Failures included three U.S. attempts in 1962 to hard land small seismometer packages released by the main Ranger spacecraft. These surface packages were to use
retrorocket A retrorocket (short for ''retrograde rocket'') is a rocket engine providing thrust opposing the motion of a vehicle, thereby causing it to decelerate. They have mostly been used in spacecraft, with more limited use in short-runway aircraft land ...
s to survive landing, unlike the parent vehicle, which was designed to deliberately crash onto the surface. The final three Ranger probes performed successful high altitude lunar
reconnaissance In military operations, reconnaissance or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enemy forces, terrain, and other activities. Examples of reconnaissance include patrolling by troops (skirmisher ...
photography missions during intentional crash impacts between .


Pioneer missions

Three different designs of Pioneer lunar probes were flown on three different modified ICBMs. Those flown on the
Thor Thor (; from non, Þórr ) is a prominent god in Germanic paganism. In Norse mythology, he is a hammer-wielding æsir, god associated with lightning, thunder, storms, sacred trees and groves in Germanic paganism and mythology, sacred groves ...
booster modified with an Able upper stage carried an
infrared Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from around ...
image scanning television system with a
resolution Resolution(s) may refer to: Common meanings * Resolution (debate), the statement which is debated in policy debate * Resolution (law), a written motion adopted by a deliberative body * New Year's resolution, a commitment that an individual mak ...
of 1
milliradian A milliradian ( SI-symbol mrad, sometimes also abbreviated mil) is an SI derived unit for angular measurement which is defined as a thousandth of a radian (0.001 radian). Milliradians are used in adjustment of firearm sights by adjusting ...
to study the Moon's surface, an
ionization chamber The ionization chamber is the simplest type of gas-filled radiation detector, and is widely used for the detection and measurement of certain types of ionizing radiation, including X-rays, gamma rays, and beta particles. Conventionally, the term ...
to measure
radiation In physics, radiation is the emission or transmission of energy in the form of waves or particles through space or through a material medium. This includes: * ''electromagnetic radiation'', such as radio waves, microwaves, infrared, visi ...
in space, a diaphragm/microphone assembly to detect
micrometeorites A micrometeorite is a micrometeoroid that has survived atmospheric entry, entry through the atmosphere of Earth, Earth's atmosphere. Usually found on Earth's surface, micrometeorites differ from meteorites in that they are smaller in size, more a ...
, a
magnetometer A magnetometer is a device that measures magnetic field or magnetic dipole moment. Different types of magnetometers measure the direction, strength, or relative change of a magnetic field at a particular location. A compass is one such device, o ...
, and temperature-variable resistors to monitor spacecraft internal thermal conditions. The first, a mission managed by the
United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...
, exploded during launch; all subsequent Pioneer lunar flights had NASA as the lead management organization. The next two returned to Earth and burned up upon reentry into the atmosphere after achieved maximum altitudes of around and , far short of the roughly required to reach the vicinity of the Moon. NASA then collaborated with the
United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...
's Ballistic Missile Agency to fly two extremely small cone-shaped probes on the
Juno Juno commonly refers to: *Juno (mythology), the Roman goddess of marriage and queen of the gods *Juno (film), ''Juno'' (film), 2007 Juno may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Fictional characters *Juno, in the film ''Jenny, Juno'' *Ju ...
ICBM, carrying only
photocells A photoresistor (also known as a photocell, or light-dependent resistor, LDR, or photo-conductive cell) is a passive component that decreases resistance with respect to receiving luminosity (light) on the component's sensitive surface. The resi ...
which would be triggered by the light of the Moon and a lunar radiation environment experiment using a Geiger-Müller tube detector. The first of these reached an altitude of only around , serendipitously gathering data that established the presence of the Van Allen radiation belts before reentering Earth's atmosphere. The second passed by the Moon at a distance of more than , twice as far as planned and too far away to trigger either of the on-board scientific instruments, yet still becoming the first U.S. spacecraft to reach a
solar orbit A heliocentric orbit (also called circumsolar orbit) is an orbit around the barycenter of the Solar System, which is usually located within or very near the surface of the Sun. All planets, comets, and asteroids in the Solar System, and the Sun ...
. The final Pioneer lunar probe design consisted of four "
paddlewheel A paddle wheel is a form of waterwheel or impeller in which a number of paddles are set around the periphery of the wheel. It has several uses, of which some are: * Very low-lift water pumping, such as flooding paddy fields at no more than about ...
"
solar panels A solar cell panel, solar electric panel, photo-voltaic (PV) module, PV panel or solar panel is an assembly of photovoltaic solar cells mounted in a (usually rectangular) frame, and a neatly organised collection of PV panels is called a phot ...
extending from a one-meter diameter spherical spin-stabilized spacecraft body equipped to take images of the lunar surface with a television-like system, estimate the Moon's mass and topography of the
poles Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, who share a common history, culture, the Polish language and are identified with the country of Poland in Ce ...
, record the distribution and velocity of micrometeorites, study radiation, measure
magnetic fields A magnetic field is a vector field that describes the magnetic influence on moving electric charges, electric currents, and magnetic materials. A moving charge in a magnetic field experiences a force perpendicular to its own velocity and to ...
, detect low frequency electromagnetic waves in space and use a sophisticated integrated
propulsion Propulsion is the generation of force by any combination of pushing or pulling to modify the translational motion of an object, which is typically a rigid body (or an articulated rigid body) but may also concern a fluid. The term is derived from ...
system for maneuvering and orbit insertion as well. None of the four spacecraft built in this series of probes survived launch on its
Atlas An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a bundle of maps of Earth or of a region of Earth. Atlases have traditionally been bound into book form, but today many atlases are in multimedia formats. In addition to presenting geographic ...
ICBM outfitted with an Able upper stage. Following the unsuccessful Atlas-Able Pioneer probes, NASA's
Jet Propulsion Laboratory The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center in the City of La Cañada Flintridge, California, United States. Founded in the 1930s by Caltech researchers, JPL is owned by NASA an ...
embarked upon an uncrewed spacecraft development program whose modular design could be used to support both lunar and interplanetary exploration missions. The interplanetary versions were known as Mariners; lunar versions were Rangers. JPL envisioned three versions of the Ranger lunar probes: Block I prototypes, which would carry various radiation detectors in test flights to a very high Earth orbit that came nowhere near the Moon; Block II, which would try to accomplish the first Moon landing by hard landing a seismometer package; and Block III, which would crash onto the lunar surface without any braking rockets while taking very high resolution wide-area photographs of the Moon during their descent.


Ranger missions

The Ranger 1 and 2 Block I missions were virtually identical. Spacecraft experiments included a
Lyman-alpha The Lyman-alpha line, typically denoted by Ly-α, is a spectral line of hydrogen (or, more generally, of any one-electron atom) in the Lyman series. It is emitted when the atomic electron transitions from an ''n'' = 2 orbital to the gr ...
telescope, a rubidium, rubidium-vapor
magnetometer A magnetometer is a device that measures magnetic field or magnetic dipole moment. Different types of magnetometers measure the direction, strength, or relative change of a magnetic field at a particular location. A compass is one such device, o ...
, electrostatic analyzers, medium-energy-range particle detectors, two triple coincidence telescopes, a cosmic-ray integrating
ionization chamber The ionization chamber is the simplest type of gas-filled radiation detector, and is widely used for the detection and measurement of certain types of ionizing radiation, including X-rays, gamma rays, and beta particles. Conventionally, the term ...
, cosmic dust detectors, and scintillation counters. The goal was to place these Block I spacecraft in a very high Earth orbit with an apogee of and a perigee of . From that vantage point, scientists could make direct measurements of the magnetosphere over a period of many months while engineers perfected new methods to routinely track and communicate with spacecraft over such large distances. Such practice was deemed vital to be assured of capturing high-bandwidth television transmissions from the Moon during a one-shot fifteen-minute time window in subsequent Block II and Block III lunar descents. Both Block I missions suffered failures of the new Agena upper stage and never left low Earth parking orbit after launch; both burned up upon reentry after only a few days. The first attempts to perform a Moon landing took place in 1962 during the Rangers 3, 4 and 5 missions flown by the United States. All three Block II missions basic vehicles were 3.1 m high and consisted of a lunar capsule covered with a balsa wood impact-limiter, 650 mm in diameter, a mono-propellant mid-course motor, a retrorocket with a thrust of , and a gold- and chrome-plated hexagonal base 1.5 m in diameter. This lander (code-named ''Tonto'') was designed to provide impact cushioning using an exterior blanket of crushable balsa wood and an interior filled with incompressible liquid freon. A 42 kg (56 pounds) metal payload sphere floated and was free to rotate in a liquid freon reservoir contained in the landing sphere. This payload sphere contained six silver-cadmium batteries to power a fifty-milliwatt radio transmitter, a temperature sensitive voltage controlled oscillator to measure lunar surface temperatures, and a seismometer designed with sensitivity high enough to detect the impact of a meteorite on the opposite side of the Moon. Weight was distributed in the payload sphere so it would rotate in its liquid blanket to place the seismometer into an upright and operational position no matter what the final resting orientation of the external landing sphere. After landing, plugs were to be opened allowing the freon to evaporate and the payload sphere to settle into upright contact with the landing sphere. The batteries were sized to allow up to three months of operation for the payload sphere. Various mission constraints limited the landing site to Oceanus Procellarum on the lunar equator, which the lander ideally would reach 66 hours after launch. No cameras were carried by the Ranger landers, and no pictures were to be captured from the lunar surface during the mission. Instead, the Ranger Block II mother ship carried a 200-scan-line television camera to capture images during the free-fall descent to the lunar surface. The camera was designed to transmit a picture every 10 seconds. Seconds before impact, at above the lunar surface, the Ranger mother ships took pictures (which may be viewe
here
. Other instruments gathering data before the mother ship crashed onto the Moon were a gamma ray spectrometer to measure overall lunar chemical composition and a radar altimeter. The radar altimeter was to give a signal ejecting the landing capsule and its solid-fueled braking rocket overboard from the Block II mother ship. The braking rocket was to slow and the landing sphere to a dead stop at above the surface and separate, allowing the landing sphere to free fall once more and hit the surface. On Ranger 3, failure of the Atlas guidance system and a software error aboard the Agena upper stage combined to put the spacecraft on a course that would miss the Moon. Attempts to salvage lunar photography during a flyby of the Moon were thwarted by in-flight failure of the onboard flight computer. This was probably because of prior sterilization (microbiology), heat sterilization of the spacecraft by keeping it above the boiling point of water for 24 hours on the ground, to protect the Moon from being contaminated by Earth organisms. Heat sterilization was also blamed for subsequent in-flight failures of the spacecraft computer on Ranger 4 and the power subsystem on Ranger 5. Only Ranger 4 reached the Moon in an uncontrolled crash impact on the far side of the Moon. Heat sterilization was discontinued for the final four Block III Ranger probes. These replaced the Block II landing capsule and its retrorocket with a heavier, more capable television system to support landing site selection for upcoming Apollo crewed Moon landing missions. Six cameras were designed to take thousands of high-altitude photographs in the final twenty-minute period before crashing on the lunar surface. Camera resolution was 1,132 scan lines, far higher than the 525 lines found in a typical U.S. 1964 home television. While Ranger 6 suffered a failure of this camera system and returned no photographs despite an otherwise successful flight, the subsequent Ranger 7 mission to Mare Cognitum was a complete success. Breaking the six-year string of failures in U.S. attempts to photograph the Moon at close range, the Ranger 7 mission was viewed as a national turning point and instrumental in allowing the key 1965 NASA budget appropriation to pass through the United States Congress intact without a reduction in funds for the Apollo crewed Moon landing program. Subsequent successes with Ranger 8 and Ranger 9 further buoyed U.S. hopes.


Soviet uncrewed soft landings (1966–1976)

The
Luna 9 Luna 9 (Луна-9), internal designation Ye-6 No.13, was an uncrewed space mission of the Soviet Union's Luna programme. On 3 February 1966, the Luna 9 spacecraft became the first spacecraft to achieve a survivable landing on a celestial bod ...
spacecraft, launched by the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
, performed the first successful soft Moon landing on 3 February 1966. Airbag#Spacecraft airbag landing systems, Airbags protected its ejectable capsule which survived an impact speed of over .
Luna 13 Luna 13 (E-6M series) was an unmanned space mission of the Luna program. Overview The Luna 13 spacecraft was launched toward the Moon from an Earth-orbiting platform and accomplished a soft landing on 24 December 1966, in the region of Oceanus P ...
duplicated this feat with a similar Moon landing on 24 December 1966. Both returned panoramic photographs that were the first views from the lunar surface.
Luna 16 ''Luna 16'' was an uncrewed space mission, part of the Soviet Luna program. It was the first robotic probe to land on the Moon and return a sample of lunar soil to Earth. The 101 grams (3.56 ounces) sample was returned from Mare Fecunditatis. ...
was the first Robotic spacecraft, robotic probe to land on the
Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...
and safely return a sample of lunar soil back to Earth. It represented the first lunar sample return mission by the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
, and was the third lunar sample return mission overall, following the
Apollo 11 Apollo 11 (July 16–24, 1969) was the American spaceflight that first landed humans on the Moon. Commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin landed the Apollo Lunar Module ''Eagle'' on July 20, 1969, at 20:17 UTC, an ...
and Apollo 12 missions. This mission was later successfully repeated by
Luna 20 ''Luna 20'' was the second of three successful Soviet lunar sample return missions. It was flown as part of the Luna program as a robotic competitor to the six successful Apollo lunar sample return missions. Overview ''Luna 20'' was placed i ...
(1972) and
Luna 24 ''Luna 24'' was a robotic probe of the Soviet Union's Luna programme. The last of the Luna series of spacecraft, the mission of the ''Luna 24'' probe was the third Soviet mission to return lunar soil samples from the Moon (the first two sampl ...
(1976). In 1970 and 1973 two
Lunokhod Lunokhod ( rus, Луноход, p=lʊnɐˈxot, "Moonwalker") was a series of Soviet robotic lunar rovers designed to land on the Moon between 1969 and 1977. Lunokhod 1 was the first roving remote-controlled robot to land on an extraterrestrial ...
("Moonwalker") robotic lunar rovers were delivered to the Moon, where they successfully operated for 10 and 4 months respectively, covering 10.5 km (Lunokhod 1) and 37 km (Lunokhod 2). These rover missions were in operation concurrently with the Zond and Luna series of Moon flyby, orbiter and landing missions.


U.S. uncrewed soft landings (1966–1968)

The U.S. robotic Surveyor program was part of an effort to locate a safe site on the Moon for a human landing and test under lunar conditions the radar and landing systems required to make a true controlled touchdown. Five of Surveyor's seven missions made successful uncrewed Moon landings. Surveyor 3 was visited two years after its Moon landing by the crew of Apollo 12. They removed parts of it for examination back on Earth to determine the effects of long-term exposure to the lunar environment.


Transition from direct ascent landings to lunar orbit operations

Within four months of each other in early 1966 the Soviet Union and the United States had accomplished successful Moon landings with uncrewed spacecraft. To the general public both countries had demonstrated roughly equal technical capabilities by returning photographic images from the surface of the Moon. These pictures provided a key affirmative answer to the crucial question of whether or not lunar soil would support upcoming crewed landers with their much greater weight. However, the Luna 9 hard landing of a ruggedized sphere using airbags at a ballistic impact speed had much more in common with the failed 1962 Ranger landing attempts and their planned impacts than with the Surveyor 1 soft landing on three footpads using its radar-controlled, adjustable-thrust retrorocket. While Luna 9 and Surveyor 1 were both major national accomplishments, only Surveyor 1 had reached its landing site employing key technologies that would be needed for a crewed flight. Thus as of mid-1966, the United States had begun to pull ahead of the Soviet Union in the so-called Space Race to land a man on the Moon. Advances in other areas were necessary before crewed spacecraft could follow uncrewed ones to the surface of the Moon. Of particular importance was developing the expertise to perform flight operations in lunar orbit. Ranger, Surveyor and initial Luna Moon landing attempts all flew directly to the surface without a lunar orbit. Such direct ascents use a minimum amount of fuel for uncrewed spacecraft on a one-way trip. In contrast, crewed vehicles need additional fuel after a lunar landing to enable a return trip back to Earth for the crew. Leaving this massive amount of required Earth-return fuel in lunar orbit until it is used later in the mission is far more efficient than taking such fuel down to the lunar surface in a Moon landing and then hauling it all back into space yet again, working against lunar gravity both ways. Such considerations lead logically to a lunar orbit rendezvous mission profile for a crewed Moon landing. Accordingly, beginning in mid-1966 both the U.S. and U.S.S.R. naturally progressed into missions featuring lunar orbit as a prerequisite to a crewed Moon landing. The primary goals of these initial uncrewed orbiters were extensive photographic mapping of the entire lunar surface for the selection of crewed landing sites and, for the Soviets, the checkout of radio communications gear that would be used in future soft landings. An unexpected major discovery from initial lunar orbiters were vast volumes of dense materials beneath the surface of the Moon's lunar maria, maria. Such mass concentrations ("mass concentration (astronomy), mascons") can send a crewed mission dangerously off course in the final minutes of a Moon landing when aiming for a relatively small landing zone that is smooth and safe. Mascons were also found over a longer period of time to greatly disturb the orbits of low-altitude satellites around the Moon, making their orbits unstable and forcing an inevitable crash on the lunar surface in the relatively short period of months to a few years. Controlling the location of impact for spent lunar orbiters can have scientific value. For example, in 1999 the NASA Lunar Prospector orbiter was deliberately targeted to impact a permanently shadowed area of Shoemaker Crater near the lunar south pole. It was hoped that energy from the impact would vaporize suspected shadowed ice deposits in the crater and liberate a water vapor plume detectable from Earth. No such plume was observed. However, a small vial of ashes from the body of pioneer lunar scientist Eugene Shoemaker was delivered by the Lunar Prospector to the crater named in his honor – currently the only human remains on the Moon.


Soviet lunar orbit satellites (1966–1974)

Luna 10 became the first spacecraft to orbit the Moon on 3 April 1966.


U.S. lunar orbit satellites (1966–1967)


Soviet circumlunar loop flights (1967–1970)

It is possible to aim a spacecraft from Earth so it will loop around the Moon and return to Earth without entering lunar orbit, following the so-called free return trajectory. Such circumlunar loop missions are simpler than lunar orbit missions because rockets for lunar orbit braking and Earth return are not required. However, a crewed circumlunar loop trip poses significant challenges beyond those found in a crewed low-Earth-orbit mission, offering valuable lessons in preparation for a crewed Moon landing. Foremost among these are mastering the demands of re-entering the Earth's atmosphere upon returning from the Moon. Inhabited Earth-orbiting vehicles such as the Space Shuttle return to Earth from speeds of around . Due to the effects of gravity, a vehicle returning from the Moon hits Earth's atmosphere at a much higher speed of around . The g-force, g-loading on astronauts during the resulting acceleration, deceleration can be at the limits of human endurance even during a nominal reentry. Slight variations in the vehicle flight path and reentry angle during a return from the Moon can easily result in fatal levels of deceleration force. Achieving a crewed circumlunar loop flight prior to a crewed lunar landing became a primary goal of the Soviets with their Zond program, Zond spacecraft program. The first three Zonds were robotic planetary probes; after that, the Zond name was transferred to a completely separate human spaceflight program. The initial focus of these later Zonds was extensive testing of required high-speed reentry techniques. This focus was not shared by the U.S., who chose instead to bypass the stepping stone of a crewed circumlunar loop mission and never developed a separate spacecraft for this purpose. Initial crewed spaceflights in the early 1960s placed a single person in low Earth orbit during the Soviet Vostok programme, Vostok and U.S. Mercury program, Mercury programs. A two-flight extension of the Vostok program known as Voskhod programme, Voskhod effectively used Vostok capsules with their ejection seats removed to achieve Soviet space firsts of multiple person crews in 1964 and spacewalks in early 1965. These capabilities were later demonstrated by the U.S. in ten Gemini program, Gemini low Earth orbit missions throughout 1965 and 1966, using a totally new second-generation spacecraft design that had little in common with the earlier Mercury. These Gemini missions went on to prove techniques for orbital Space rendezvous, rendezvous and docking crucial to a crewed lunar landing mission profile. After the end of the Gemini program, the Soviet Union began flying their second-generation Zond crewed spacecraft in 1967 with the ultimate goal of looping a cosmonaut around the Moon and returning him or her immediately to Earth. The Zond program, Zond spacecraft was launched with the simpler and already operational Proton rocket, Proton launch rocket, unlike the parallel Soviet human Moon landing effort also underway at the time based on third-generation Soyuz spacecraft requiring development of the advanced N-1 rocket, N-1 booster. The Soviets thus believed they could achieve a crewed Zond circumlunar flight years before a U.S. human lunar landing and so score a propaganda victory. However, significant development problems delayed the Zond program and the success of the U.S. Apollo lunar landing program led to the eventual termination of the Zond effort. Like Zond, Apollo flights were generally launched on a free return trajectory that would return them to Earth via a circumlunar loop if a Apollo service module, service module malfunction failed to place them in lunar orbit. This option was implemented after an explosion aboard the Apollo 13 mission in 1970, which is the only crewed circumlunar loop mission flown to date. Zond 5 was the first spacecraft to carry life from Earth to the vicinity of the Moon and return, initiating the final lap of the
Space Race The Space Race was a 20th-century competition between two Cold War rivals, the United States and the Soviet Union, to achieve superior spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the ballistic missile-based nuclear arms race between the tw ...
with its payload of tortoises, insects, plants, and bacteria. Despite the failure suffered in its final moments, the Zond 6 mission was reported by Soviet media as being a success as well. Although hailed worldwide as remarkable achievements, both these Zond missions flew off-nominal reentry trajectories resulting in deceleration forces that would have been fatal to humans. As a result, the Soviets secretly planned to continue uncrewed Zond tests until their reliability to support human flight had been demonstrated. However, due to NASA's continuing problems with the Apollo Lunar Module, lunar module, and because of Central Intelligence Agency, CIA reports of a potential Soviet crewed circumlunar flight in late 1968, NASA fatefully changed the flight plan of Apollo 8 from an Earth-orbit lunar module test to a lunar orbit mission scheduled for late December 1968. In early December 1968 the launch window to the Moon opened for the Soviet launch site in Baikonur, giving the USSR their final chance to beat the US to the Moon. Cosmonauts went on alert and asked to fly the Zond spacecraft then in final countdown at Baikonur on the first human trip to the Moon. Ultimately, however, the Soviet Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Politburo decided the risk of crew death was unacceptable given the combined poor performance to that point of Zond/Proton and so scrubbed the launch of a crewed Soviet lunar mission. Their decision proved to be a wise one, since this unnumbered Zond mission was destroyed in another uncrewed test when it was finally launched several weeks later. By this time flights of the third generation U.S. Apollo spacecraft had begun. Far more capable than the Zond, the Apollo spacecraft had the necessary rocket power to slip into and out of lunar orbit and to make course adjustments required for a safe reentry during the return to Earth. The Apollo 8 mission carried out the first human trip to the Moon on 24 December 1968, certifying the
Saturn V Saturn V is a retired American super heavy-lift launch vehicle developed by NASA under the Apollo program for human exploration of the Moon. The rocket was human-rated, with multistage rocket, three stages, and powered with liquid-propellant r ...
booster for crewed use and flying not a circumlunar loop but instead a full ten orbits around the Moon before returning safely to Earth. Apollo 10 then performed a full dress rehearsal of a crewed Moon landing in May 1969. This mission orbited within of the lunar surface, performing necessary low-altitude mapping of trajectory-altering mascons using a factory prototype lunar module too heavy to land. With the failure of the robotic Soviet sample return Moon landing attempt
Luna 15 Luna 15 was a robotic space mission of the Soviet Luna programme, that crashed into the Moon on 21 July 1969. On 21 July 1969, while Apollo 11 astronauts finished the first human moonwalk, Luna 15, a robotic Soviet spacecraft in lunar orbit at th ...
in July 1969, the stage was set for
Apollo 11 Apollo 11 (July 16–24, 1969) was the American spaceflight that first landed humans on the Moon. Commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin landed the Apollo Lunar Module ''Eagle'' on July 20, 1969, at 20:17 UTC, an ...
.


Human Moon landings (1969–1972)


US strategy

Plans for human Moon exploration began during the Dwight D. Eisenhower, Eisenhower administration. In a series of mid-1950s articles in ''Collier's'' magazine, Wernher von Braun had popularized the idea of a crewed expedition to establish a lunar base. A human Moon landing posed several daunting technical challenges to the US and USSR. Besides guidance and weight management, atmospheric re-entry without Ablation, ablative overheating was a major hurdle. After the Soviets launched Sputnik, von Braun promoted a plan for the US Army to establish a military lunar outpost by 1965. After the Space race#First humans in space, early Soviet successes, especially Yuri Gagarin's flight, US President John F. Kennedy looked for a project that would capture the public imagination. He asked Vice President Lyndon Johnson to make recommendations on a scientific endeavor that would prove US world leadership. The proposals included non-space options such as massive irrigation projects to benefit the
Third World The term "Third World" arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Western European nations and their allies represented the " First ...
. The Soviets, at the time, had more powerful rockets than the US, which gave them an advantage in some kinds of space mission. Advances in US nuclear weapon technology had led to smaller, lighter warheads; the Soviets' were much heavier, and the powerful R-7 Semyorka, R-7 rocket was developed to carry them. More modest missions such as flying around the Moon, or a space lab in lunar orbit (both were proposed by Kennedy to von Braun), offered too much advantage to the Soviets; ''landing'', however, would capture the world's imagination. Johnson had championed the US human spaceflight program ever since Sputnik, sponsoring legislation to create NASA while he was still a senator. When Kennedy asked him in 1961 to research the best achievement to counter the Soviets' lead, Johnson responded that the US had an even chance of beating them to a crewed lunar landing, but not for anything less. Kennedy seized on Apollo as the ideal focus for efforts in space. He ensured continuing funding, shielding space spending from the 1963 tax cut, but diverting money from other NASA scientific projects. These diversions dismayed NASA's leader, James E. Webb, who perceived the need for NASA's support from the scientific community. The Moon landing required development of the large Saturn V
launch vehicle A launch vehicle or carrier rocket is a rocket designed to carry a payload (spacecraft or satellites) from the Earth's surface to outer space. Most launch vehicles operate from a launch pad, launch pads, supported by a missile launch contro ...
, which achieved a perfect record: zero catastrophic failures or launch vehicle-caused mission failures in thirteen launches. For the program to succeed, its proponents would have to defeat criticism from politicians both on the left (more money for social programs) and on the right (more money for the military). By emphasizing the scientific payoff and playing on fears of Soviet space dominance, Kennedy and Johnson managed to swing public opinion: by 1965, 58 percent of Americans favored Apollo, up from 33 percent two years earlier. After Johnson Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, became President in 1963, his continuing defense of the program allowed it to succeed in 1969, as Kennedy had planned.


Soviet strategy

Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev said in October 1963 the USSR was "not at present planning flight by cosmonauts to the Moon," while insisting that the Soviets had not dropped out of the race. Only after another year did the USSR fully commit itself to a Moon-landing attempt, which ultimately failed. At the same time, Kennedy had suggested various joint programs, including a possible Moon landing by Soviet and U.S. astronauts and the development of better weather-monitoring satellites, eventually resulting in the Apollo-Soyuz mission. Khrushchev, sensing an attempt by Kennedy to steal Russian space technology, rejected the idea at first: if the USSR went to the Moon, it would go alone. Though Khrushchev was eventually warming up to the idea, but the realization of a joint Moon landing was choked by Kennedy's assassination. Sergey Korolev, the Soviet space program's chief designer, had started promoting his Soyuz (spacecraft), Soyuz craft and the N1 (rocket), N1 launcher rocket that would have the capability of carrying out a human Moon landing. Khrushchev directed Korolev's design bureau to arrange further space firsts by modifying the existing Vostok technology, while a second team started building a completely new launcher and craft, the Proton booster and the Zond, for a human cislunar flight in 1966. In 1964 the new Soviet leadership gave Korolev the backing for a Moon landing effort and brought all crewed projects under his direction. With Korolev's death and the failure of the first Soyuz flight in 1967, coordination of the Soviet Moon landing program quickly unraveled. The Soviets built a landing craft and selected cosmonauts for a mission that would have placed Alexei Leonov on the Moon's surface, but with the successive launch failures of the N1 booster in 1969, plans for a crewed landing suffered first delay and then cancellation. A program of automated return vehicles was begun, in the hope of being the first to return lunar rocks. This had several failures. It eventually succeeded with
Luna 16 ''Luna 16'' was an uncrewed space mission, part of the Soviet Luna program. It was the first robotic probe to land on the Moon and return a sample of lunar soil to Earth. The 101 grams (3.56 ounces) sample was returned from Mare Fecunditatis. ...
in 1970. But this had little impact, because the Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 lunar landings and rock returns had already taken place by then.


Apollo missions

In total, twenty-four U.S. astronauts have traveled to the Moon. Three have made the trip twice, and twelve have walked on its surface. Apollo 8 was a lunar-orbit-only mission, Apollo 10 included undocking and Descent Orbit Insertion (DOI), followed by LM staging to CSM redocking, while Apollo 13, originally scheduled as a landing, ended up as a lunar fly-by, by means of free return trajectory; thus, none of these missions made landings. Apollo 7 and Apollo 9 were Earth-orbit-only missions. Apart from the inherent dangers of crewed Moon expeditions as seen with Apollo 13, one reason for their cessation according to astronaut Alan Bean is the cost it imposes in government subsidies.


Human Moon landings


Other aspects of the successful Apollo landings

President Richard Nixon had speechwriter William Safire prepare a condolence speech for delivery in case Armstrong and Aldrin became marooned on the Moon's surface and could not be rescued. In 1951, science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke forecast that a man would reach the Moon by 1978. On 16 August 2006, the Associated Press reported that NASA is Apollo 11 missing tapes, missing the original Slow-scan television tapes (which were made before the scan conversion for conventional TV) of the Apollo 11 Moon walk. Some news outlets have mistakenly reported the SSTV tapes found in Western Australia, but those tapes were only recordings of data from the Apollo 11 Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package, Early Apollo Surface Experiments Package. The tapes were found in 2008 and sold at auction in 2019 for the 50th anniversary of the landing. Scientists believe the six American flags planted by astronauts have been bleached white because of more than 40 years of exposure to solar radiation. Using Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter#LROC, LROC images, five of the six American flags are still standing and casting shadows at all of the sites, except Apollo 11. Astronaut Buzz Aldrin reported that the flag was blown over by the exhaust from the ascent engine during liftoff of Apollo 11."Apollo Moon Landing Flags Still Standing, Photos Reveal"
Space.com. Retrieved 10 October 2014


Late 20th century–Early 21st century uncrewed crash landings


Hiten (Japan)

Launched on 24 January 1990, 11:46 UTC. At the end of its mission, the Japanese lunar orbiter
Hiten Hiten may refer to: * Hiten (name), Indian given name * Hiten (spacecraft), Japanese lunar probe *Tennin , which may include , , and the specifically female version, the , are a divine kind of spiritual beings found in Japanese Buddhism, the ...
was commanded to crash into the lunar surface and did so on 10 April 1993 at 18:03:25.7 UT (11 April 03:03:25.7 JST).


Lunar Prospector (US)

Lunar Prospector was launched on 7 January 1998. The mission ended on 31 July 1999, when the orbiter was deliberately crashed into a crater near the lunar south pole after the presence of water ice was successfully detected.


SMART-1 (ESA)

Launched 27 September 2003, 23:14 UTC from the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana. At the end of its mission, the European Space Agency, ESA lunar orbiter SMART-1 performed a controlled crash into the Moon, at about 2 km/s. The time of the crash was 3 September 2006, at 5:42 UTC.


Chandrayaan-1 (India)

The impactor, the
Moon Impact Probe The Moon Impact Probe (MIP) developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), India's national space agency, was a moon, lunar probe that was released by ISRO's Chandrayaan-1 Exploration of the Moon, ...
, an instrument on
Chandrayaan-1 Chandrayaan-1 (, ) was the first Indian lunar probe under the Chandrayaan program. It was launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation in October 2008, and operated until August 2009. The mission included a lunar orbiter and an impacto ...
mission, impacted near Shackleton (crater), Shackleton crater at the south pole of the lunar surface at 14 November 2008, 20:31 IST.
Chandrayaan-1 Chandrayaan-1 (, ) was the first Indian lunar probe under the Chandrayaan program. It was launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation in October 2008, and operated until August 2009. The mission included a lunar orbiter and an impacto ...
was launched on 22 October 2008, 00:52 UTC.


Chang'e 1 (China)

The Chinese lunar orbiter
Chang'e 1 Chang'e 1 (; ) was an unmanned Chinese lunar-orbiting spacecraft, part of the first phase of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program. The spacecraft was named after the Chinese Moon goddess, Chang'e. Chang'e 1 was launched on 24 October 2007 at 10 ...
, executed a controlled crash onto the surface of the Moon on 1 March 2009, 20:44 GMT, after a 16-month mission.
Chang'e 1 Chang'e 1 (; ) was an unmanned Chinese lunar-orbiting spacecraft, part of the first phase of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program. The spacecraft was named after the Chinese Moon goddess, Chang'e. Chang'e 1 was launched on 24 October 2007 at 10 ...
was launched on 24 October 2007, 10:05 UTC.


SELENE (Japan)

SELENE or ''Kaguya'' after successfully orbiting the Moon for a year and eight months, the main orbiter was instructed to impact on the lunar surface near the crater Gill (lunar crater), Gill at 18:25 UTC on 10 June 2009. SELENE or ''Kaguya'' was launched on 14 September 2007.


LCROSS (US)

The LCROSS data collecting shepherding spacecraft was launched together with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) on 18 June 2009 on board an Atlas V rocket with a Centaur (rocket stage), Centaur upper stage. On 9 October 2009, at 11:31 UTC, the Centaur upper stage impacted the lunar surface, releasing the kinetic TNT equivalent, energy equivalent of detonating approximately 2 tons of Trinitrotoluene, TNT (8.86 Gigajoule, GJ). Six minutes later at 11:37 UTC, the LCROSS shepherding spacecraft also impacted the surface.


GRAIL (US)

The Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory, GRAIL mission consisted of two small spacecraft: GRAIL A (''Ebb''), and GRAIL B (''Flow''). They were launched on 10 September 2011 on board a Delta II rocket. GRAIL A separated from the rocket about nine minutes after launch, and GRAIL B followed about eight minutes later. The first probe entered orbit on 31 December 2011 and the second followed on 1 January 2012. The two spacecraft impacted the Lunar surface on 17 December 2012.


LADEE (US)

Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer, LADEE was launched on 7 September 2013. The mission ended on 18 April 2014, when the spacecraft's controllers intentionally crashed LADEE into the
far side of the Moon The far side of the Moon is the lunar hemisphere that always faces away from Earth, opposite to the Near side of the Moon, near side, because of synchronous rotation in the Moon's orbit. Compared to the near side, the far side's terrain is ru ...
, which, later, was determined to be near the eastern rim of Sundman (crater), Sundman V crater.


Manfred Memorial Moon Mission (Luxemburg)

The Manfred Memorial Moon Mission was launched on the 23 October 2014. It conducted a lunar flyby and operated for 19 days which was four times longer than expected. The Manfred Memorial Moon Mission remained attached to the upper stage of its launch vehicle (CZ-3C/E). The spacecraft along with its upper stage impacted the Moon on 4 March 2022.


21st century uncrewed soft landings and attempts


Chang'e 3 (China)

On 14 December 2013 at 13:12 UTC
Chang'e 3 Chang'e 3 (; ) is a robotic lunar exploration mission operated by the China National Space Administration (CNSA), incorporating a robotic lander and China's first lunar rover. It was launched in December 2013 as part of the second phase of ...
Soft landing (rocketry), soft-landed a Yutu (rover), rover on the Moon. This was China's first soft landing on another celestial body and world's first lunar soft landing since
Luna 24 ''Luna 24'' was a robotic probe of the Soviet Union's Luna programme. The last of the Luna series of spacecraft, the mission of the ''Luna 24'' probe was the third Soviet mission to return lunar soil samples from the Moon (the first two sampl ...
on 22 August 1976. The mission was launched on 1 December 2013. After successful landing, the lander release the Yutu (rover), Yutu rover, which moved 114 meters before being immobilized due to system malfunction. But the rover was still operational until July 2016.


Chang'e 4 (China)

On 3 January 2019 at 2:26 UTC
Chang'e 4 Chang'e 4 (; ) is a robotic spacecraft mission, part of the second phase of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program. China achieved humanity's first soft landing on the far side of the Moon, on 3 January 2019. A communication relay satellite, ...
became the first spacecraft to land on the
far side of the Moon The far side of the Moon is the lunar hemisphere that always faces away from Earth, opposite to the Near side of the Moon, near side, because of synchronous rotation in the Moon's orbit. Compared to the near side, the far side's terrain is ru ...
. Chang'e 4 was originally designed as the backup of Chang'e 3. It was later adjusted as a mission to the far side of the Moon after the success of Chang'e 3. After making a successful landing within Von Kármán (lunar crater), Von Kármán crater, the Chang'e 4 lander deployed the 140kg Yutu-2, Yutu-2 rover and began human's very first close exploration of the far side of the Moon. Because the Moon blocks the communications between far side and the earth, a relay satellite, Queqiao relay satellite, Queqiao, was launched to the Earth–Moon L2 Lagrangian point a few months prior to the landing to enable communications. Yutu-2, the second lunar rover from China, was equipped with panoramic camera, lunar penetrating radar, visible and near-infrared Imaging spectrometer and advanced small analyzer for neutrals. As of July 2022, it has survived more than 1000 days on the lunar surface and is still driving with cumulative travel distance of over 1200 meters.


''Beresheet'' (Israel)

On 22 February 2019 at 01:45 UTC, SpaceX launched the ''
Beresheet ''Beresheet'' ( he, בְּרֵאשִׁית, ''Bərēšīṯ'', "In the beginning"; Book of Genesis) was a demonstrator of a small robotic lunar lander and lunar probe operated by SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries. Its aims included insp ...
'' lunar lander, developed by Israel's
SpaceIL SpaceIL is an Israeli organization, established in 2011, that competed in the Google Lunar X Prize (GLXP) contest to land a spacecraft on the Moon. SpaceIL successfully launched its ''Beresheet'' lander on 22 February 2019 at 01:45 UTC; it ente ...
organization. Launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida on a Falcon 9 booster, with the lander being one of three payloads on the rocket. Beresheet arrived near the Moon using a slow but fuel-efficient trajectory. Taking six weeks and several increasingly large orbits around the Earth, it first achieved a large elliptical orbit around Earth with an apogee near . At that point, with a short deceleration burn, it was caught by the Moon's gravity in a highly elliptical lunar orbit, an orbit which was circularized and reduced in diameter over a week's time, before attempting a landing on the Moon's surface on 11 April 2019. The mission was the first Israeli, and the first privately funded, lunar landing attempt. SpaceIL was originally conceived in 2011 as a venture to pursue the Google Lunar X Prize. On 11 April 2019 ''Beresheet'' crashed on the surface of the Moon, as a result of a main engine failure in the final descent. The ''Beresheet'' lunar lander's target landing destination was within Mare Serenitatis, a vast volcanic basin on the Moon's northern near side. Despite the failure, the mission represents the closest a private entity has come to a soft lunar landing.


Chandrayaan 2 (India)

ISRO, the Indian National Space agency, launched Chandrayaan 2 on 22 July 2019. It has 3 major modules: Orbiter, Lander and Rover. Each of these modules has scientific instruments from scientific research institutes in India and the US. The spacecraft was launched by the GSLV Mk III. On 7 September 2019 at 1:50 IST Chandryaan 2's ''Vikram'' lander started the soft landing sequence. Contact was lost on above the lunar surface after the rough braking phase, and was not regained. From the images of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and Chandrayaan 2, chandrayaan orbiter it was found that the ''Vikram'' lander had crashed on the Moon and was destroyed.


Chang'e 5 (China)

On 6 December 2020 at 21:42 UTC Chang'e 5 landed and collected the first lunar soil samples in over 40 years, and then Sample return mission, returned the samples to Earth. The 8.2t stack consisting of lander, ascender, orbiter and returner was launched to lunar orbit by a Long March 5 rocket on November 24. The lander-ascender combination was separated with the orbiter and returner before landing near Mons Rümker in Oceanus Procellarum. The ascender was later launched back to lunar orbit, carrying samples collected by the lander, and completed the first-ever robotic rendezvous and docking in lunar orbit. The sample container was then transferred to the returner, which successfully landed on Inner Mongolia on 16 December 2020, completing China's first extraterrestrial sample return mission.


Landings on moons of other Solar System bodies

Progress in space exploration has recently broadened the phrase ''moon landing'' to include other moons in the Solar System as well. The ''Huygens'' probe of the ''Cassini–Huygens'' mission to Saturn performed a successful moon landing on Titan in 2005. Similarly, the Soviet probe Phobos 2 came within of performing a landing on Mars' moon Phobos (moon), Phobos in 1989 before radio contact with that lander was suddenly lost. A similar Russian sample return mission called Fobos-Grunt ("grunt" means "soil" in Russian) launched in November 2011, but stalled in low Earth orbit. There is widespread interest in performing a future landing on Jupiter's moon Europa (moon), Europa to drill down and explore the possible liquid water ocean beneath its icy surface.


Proposed future missions

After the failure of the ''Vikram'' lander of
Chandrayaan-2 Chandrayaan-2 (, ; ) is the second lunar exploration mission developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), after Chandrayaan-1. It consists of a lunar orbiter, and also included the ''Vikram'' lander, and the ''Pragyan'' lunar ...
, the
Indian Space Research Organisation The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO; ) is the national space agency of India, headquartered in Bengaluru. It operates under the Department of Space (DOS) which is directly overseen by the Prime Minister of India, while the Chairman ...
(ISRO) plans to re-attempt a soft landing with a third lunar exploration mission, Chandrayaan-3. It is scheduled to launch in the third quarter of 2022. The Lunar Polar Exploration Mission is a robotic space mission concept by ISRO and Japan's space agency JAXA that would send a
lunar rover A lunar rover or Moon rover is a space exploration vehicle designed to move across the surface of the Moon. The Apollo Program's Lunar Roving Vehicle was driven on the Moon by members of three American crews, Apollo 15, 16, and 17. Other rov ...
and Lunar lander, lander to explore Lunar south pole, south pole region of the
Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...
in 2024.After Reaching Mars, India's Date With Venus In 2023 Confirmed, Says ISRO.
U. Tejonmayam, ''India Times''. 18 May 2019.
JAXA is likely to provide launch service using the future H3 (rocket), H3 rocket, along with responsibility for the rover. ISRO would be responsible for the lander. Russia's Luna 25 lander is expected to launch in May 2022. On 11 December 2017, US President Trump signed Space Policy Directive 1, which directed NASA to return to the Moon with a crewed mission, for "long-term exploration and use" and missions to other planets."Text of Remarks at Signing of Trump Space Policy Directive 1 and List of Attendees"
, Marcia Smith, ''Space Policy Online'', 11 December 2017, accessed 21 August 2018.
On 26 March 2019, Vice President Mike Pence formally announced that the mission will include the first female lunar astronaut. The Artemis program has the goal of returning to the Moon with new launch systems.


Historical empirical evidence

Many conspiracists hold that the Apollo Moon landings were a hoax; however, empiricism, empirical evidence is readily available to show that Third-party evidence for Apollo Moon landings, human Moon landings did occur. Anyone on Earth with an appropriate laser and telescope system can bounce laser beams off three retroreflector arrays left on the Moon by Apollo 11, 14 and 15, verifying deployment of the Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment at historically documented Apollo Moon landing sites and so proving equipment constructed on Earth was successfully transported to the surface of the Moon. In addition, in August 2009 NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter began to send back high resolution photos of the Apollo landing sites. These photos show the large descent stages of the six Apollo Lunar Modules which were left behind, the tracks of the three
Lunar Roving Vehicle The Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) is a battery-powered four-wheeled rover used on the Moon in the last three missions of the American Apollo program ( 15, 16, and 17) during 1971 and 1972. It is popularly called the Moon buggy, a play on the t ...
s, and the paths left by the twelve astronauts as they walked in the lunar dust. In 2016, then-U.S. president Barack Obama acknowledged that the Moon landing was not a hoax and publicly thanked the members of the television show ''Mythbusters'' for publicly proving as such in season 6 episode 2.


See also

* List of Apollo astronauts * Lunar Escape Systems * Robert Goddard * Soyuz 7K-L1 * First on the Moon (disambiguation)


References


Further reading

* James Gleick, "Moon Fever" [review of Oliver Morton, ''The Moon: A History of the Future''; ''Apollo's Muse: The Moon in the Age of Photography'', an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, 3 July – 22 September 2019; Douglas Brinkley, ''American Moonshot: John F. Kennedy and the Great Space Race; Brandon R. Brown, ''The Apollo Chronicles: Engineering America's First Moon Missions''; Roger D. Launius, ''Reaching for the Moon: A Short History of the Space Race; ''Apollo 11'', a documentary film directed by Todd Douglas Miller; and Michael Collins (astronaut), Michael Collins, ''Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut's Journeys (50th Anniversary Edition)'']


External links


NASA's page
on Moon landings, missions, etc. (includes information on other space agencies' missions.) *
Project Apollo Archive Flickr Gallery
an independently organized collection of high-res photos for the Moon Landing and the Apollo Missions.
Apollo in Real Time
an independently organized collection of different Apollo missions media, creating a comprehensive and interactive documentation of Apollo missions. {{DEFAULTSORT:Moon Landing Exploration of the Moon, Landing History of television Missions to the Moon, 1959 introductions Articles containing video clips